NEW: Even Millennials Are Shifting To The Political Right

Aging millennial voters are becoming more receptive to Republicans, bucking a theory among Democrats that yesteryear’s young people would break from a longstanding trend across previous generations that shows conservative sentiments grow over time.

Nate Cohn with the New York Times reported new data showing a rightward shift among voters under 50 who came of age supporting former President Barack Obama’s campaign and opposing the Iraq War but now find themselves unmoored from the direction of today’s Democratic Party. The trend is especially pronounced among the eldest millennials: nearly 50 percent of those born between 1980 and 1984 now vote for the Republican candidate for president, a trend that mirrors the voting habits of the youngest Generation X voters who came before them. While millennials born between 1985 and 1994 still vote heavily Democratic, they have made definitive shifts rightward since 2012, when President Obama was reelected.

In the 2020 election, voters in the 18 to 29 demographic backed President Joe Biden by 55 percent to 43 percent, roughly half the support that Obama received. Exit polls were even closer: Biden won just 51 to 45 among voters who were between the ages of 18 and 27 in 2008.

For years, Democrats have repeated the theory that young people, fed up with war pigs and late-stage capitalism, would usher in an era of Democratic dominance as Republicans became a less competitive national force and retreated to success only in rural America. However, Republicans’ messaging against foreign intervention and in favor of colorblind policies on race may be positioning the conservative party as a new home for the counterculture, Cohn suggests. Young people in Southern states have been an especially potent force behind President Donald Trump’s ascent in the polls.